


Kale

by dotYoo



Series: Leafy Greens [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Found Family, goopey dads, who mean well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-02 16:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10948470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotYoo/pseuds/dotYoo
Summary: How W.D. Gaster came home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all! This is the third and final installment of what I'm calling the Leafy Greens story. Arc 1 is _Wilted Spinach_ (which I'll bring over here when I figure out how pictures work on ao3), and arc 2 is _Baby Spinach_. _Kale_ is meant to be an extended epilogue to the first two arcs, and to give me a way to neatly sum up the story and finish it in a happy ending.
> 
> Updates on Fridays at 7:30pm EST!

201x (minus 2 years): after two centuries of use, the Underground’s hydroelectric system begins to fail.  Maintenance crew work frantically to repair the dams while the Capital draws power from its emergency backup generators.  Two days later, the backups also fail.  Power fluctuation rock the city.  Monsters who already have so little now have even less; waves of unease spread across the Underground.  The Royal Danger Clock, which sits attuned to the moods of the general populus, ticks further into the red zone than ever before.   


Scientists are pulled from all non-critical projects to work on creating a new energy source.  Doctor Gaster is one of the many people on the Emergency Power Restoration Committee.  They work in three eight-hour shifts, ensuring there’s always someone available if anything else goes wrong.  Ideas are proposed, analysed, discarded.  Another day goes by and the Capital city blacks out entirely.

Sans balances his phone against his shoulder while he lights a candle.  He’s been pulled in on the committee, since Gaster was hardly going anywhere without his favorite coworker.  “It’s okay, buddy,” Sans says into the phone, “We’re working as fast as we can.  Yeah, we could use all the help we can get, come on down here.”

“Tell him to bring paper,” Gaster says from where he’s pouring over yet another notebook.

“Dings says-- yeah, good.  Thanks.  See you soon.”

Gaster pulls the candle closer and makes a mark on his calculations.  “You never call Papyrus ‘buddy’ unless you’re worried.”

“Me, worried?  Nah,” Sans says as he lights another candle, “We’re going to nail this thing to the wall.”

“Your lack of inflection doesn’t make you inscrutable.  This the greatest threat to monster mental health since we were locked Underground, and you are on the team keeping the general population from dissolving into so many piles of dust.  ”

“That’s--” Sans stutters, “Of course  _ I’m _ not-- It’s going to be--”

Gaster continues scribbling without comment.  He seems to be waiting for Sans to finish a thought.  Any of them.  He’s patient like that.

Sans sighs heavily and sits in his chair.  A second desk was moved into Gaster’s office when San became an official Royal Laboratory employee, roughly eighteen years ago.  He slumps forward onto it now.  “Yeah, okay.  I’m pretty concerned about this.  I might even say that I’m  _ worried. _ ”

Gaster absently pats Sans’ shoulder.  “If it helps, I am too.  But I really do believe we’re going to make it through this.  After all, we have each other.”

Sans peers over his own arm to see Gaster smiling at him.  Despite reminders and complaints from both his sons, Gaster’s head remains cracked in two places.  Sans makes a mental note to increase his bothering about it and tentatively smiles back.

“Thanks da--”

The door, closed for privacy, bursts inward.  Papyrus comes stumbling in, his arms laden with paper stacked higher than his own head.  “ _ Hello I am here _ , I have the thing you wanted!”

Sans feels his eyebrow tick upwards.  He and waves the papers over to Gaster’s desk as Papyrus’ gulps down air.  “How did you get here so fast?”

“I ran,” Papyrus gasps, “A lot.”

Gaster has drifted across the room with a glass of water.  Sans doesn’t know where he got it.  “Easy, Papyrus, dead breaths.”

“How can I take deep breaths when everything is  _ dark?!” _

Sans pulls Papyrus down into a hug.  He knows he isn’t talking about the absence of light in the powered-down buildings.  The feelings hanging over the city are  _ uncertain _ and  _ angry _ and  _ scared _ , any one of which could be enough to make an unstable monster Fall Down.  Papyrus, Gaster, and Sans are all doing pretty emotionally well, but there are others who aren’t so fortunate.  Who knows how many of them are going to make it through this?

Gaster presses the water into Papyrus’ hand.  “Easy there, it will be alright.”

Papyrus holds the drink with an unsteady hand.  He peeks up from Sans’ shoulder.  “You’re going to fix this, right dad?”

Gaster smiles and gestures at his desk.  The stack of paper has lost structural integrity and sent sheafs all over his space.  “With your help, I believe I already have.”

-

To Sans’ surprise, Gaster’s calculations actually extend over most of the paper.  They’re absolute chicken-scratch, but the end product is beautiful in its simplicity: geothermal electricity, produced from Snowdin’s ice reserves and Hotland’s natural lava flows.  The steam resulting from their combination will then be combined with excess magic runoff collected from the population's negative emotions gathered at various points in time (though Sans has no idea how Gaster managed that part).  He plans to use available resources to light the city.  Sans is grateful, impressed, and inspired, all at the same time.

Plans are made, blueprints are drawn up and followed, the Core is constructed.  Gaster supervises the process with his usual eye for detail.  Sans handles the big picture ideas like  _ how big did you say the radius was _ and  _ where should this bypass valve go? _ , and Papyrus helps with general administration and organization.  The Gaster family (which, according to the adoption papers issued twenty years ago, is the last name all three of them share) is efficient under normal circumstances and brilliant under difficult ones.

The Committee, which consists of most of the lab, comes together two days later to celebrate the Core’s completion.  King Asgore himself makes an appearance to pop open the first bottle of champagne.  Everyone is over the metaphorical moon and, before long, just a bit drunk.

Sans skirts the edges of the party to sit with Alphys, the newest employee of the Royal Laboratory and his oldest friend.  She looks as uncomfortable with the crowd.  “So,” he says, sliding into the chair next to her with what he considers his best slouch, “We’re not going to die today.”

“Nope,” Alphys agrees, clicking her champagne flute against Sans’.  “D-doctor Gaster d-did one heck of a job.”

“Just because you work here doesn’t mean you have to fall back on formalities,” Sans points out, taking a sip of his drink.

Alphys draws her fingers around the rim of the glass.  “It d-doesn’t feel right just calling him Gaster.  I d-don’t want to give anyone the impression I got here because of anything other than my own ability and hard work.”

“No one thinks that, but I do get it.”  Sans looks across the room, to where Gaster and Gerald are chatting with the king.  Gerald is holding up cup that, unless he’s planning to dump the contents into his respirator and drink through his breathing system, probably doesn’t have liquid in it.  Asgore laughs heartily and slaps Gaster on the back hard that he lurches forward and his drink sloshes out of his glass.  Gaster, whose body was designed for rough impacts, doesn’t seem to mind.

Sans sits in comfortable silence with Alphys as the idle chatter continues around them.  He can’t remember the last time the lab came together like this.  Sans isn’t one for crowds, but knowing all these people are here to celebrate a rare monster victory.  Realistically, this just puts them back to square one, but emotionally, it feels like a long awaited step in the right direction.

“How are you doing without Papyrus?” Alphys asks.

Sans fiddles with his glass.  This morning marked the day Papyrus left the Capital to go train for the Royal Guard with Captain Undyne.  Personally, Sans suspects the training program is a ruse to keep Papyrus off the Guard roster, but his brother is capable of making his own decisions and if this is what he wants to do, Sans isn’t going to get in his way.  If anyone else had asked about him, Sans would have shrugged the question off, but he and Alphys have survived twenty years of friendship and shared childhood trauma, so he says, “It’s going to be tough going back to an empty room tonight.”

Alphys nods sagely.  “He’s going to call, right?  Tell him you miss him.”

Sans watches Gaster to keep from looking at Alphys.  Gaster is excusing himself from conversation with the king and pulling his phone from his pocket.  “I don’t want him think he needs to come back.”

“I think he’ll appreciate it,” Alphys disagrees, “I think hearing that you’re proud of him, but that you miss him, will make him feel good.”

“That would mean talking about feelings,” Sans whines.

“How will you survive,” Alphys says with heavy sarcasm.

Sans finally looks up to meet her eye.  He grins slightly wider than he usually does.  “Speaking feelings and the lady my bro is training with--”

“D-don’t you d-dare,” Alphys snaps.  She turns away from Sans to sip at her champagne, but not before he notices a faint blush rising up in her face.

“I think  _ she’ll _ appreciate it,” Sans teases, slinging an arm around Alphys’ shoulders, “I think hearing that you  _ like _ her will make her  _ feel _ good.”

Alphys shoves him good naturedly.  Sans laughs and lets her remove his arm.  He glances across the room to see what Gaster is up to, but finds him missing.

“Hey,” he asks, “Did you see where Dings went?”

“ _ Sans, _ ” says Gaster, who’s suddenly right next to him.

Sans, who’s had many years to acclimate to Gaster appearing out of thin air, doesn’t startle.  “Ah, there you are.  I was just looking for you.”

“Hello D-doctor,” Alphys says.

Gaster doesn’t look good.  If he weren’t made of non-organic materials, Sans might says he looks ill.  “Hello Alphys.  If you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Sans.”

“I’ll catch up with you later, Al,” Sans says, hopping off his chair.  He follows Gaster as he weaves through the crowd, politely declining invitations for more drinks and conversation until they’ve made it into the hallway.  “Everything okay?”

Gaster places a hand on Sans’ shoulder.  “No, I can’t say that it is.  I just got a call from Donahue, who just got a call from one of her old friends on the force.  Apparently there was a jailbreak during one of the blackouts.”  He gently squeezes the bones under Sans’ jacket.  “You’re father is missing.”

-

A short humanoid monster escorts them home from the lab and stays for the first watch, courtesy of the Royal Guard.  Sans doesn’t remember how they get back to the apartment.  He does remember his magic thrumming nervously through his system, sparking against anything that gets too close.  Gaster handles the minor displacements like a champ.  His durable body makes him good, indestructible company when Sans is too agitated to properly control his magic.  He makes them all Hot Drinks (decaf tea, neither of them need a stimulant right now) and lets Sans sit in silence as he processes the fact that his dad could be en route to their house.

This man brought Sans and Papyrus to life via a murdered human child’s soul, kept them locked in a secret basement under the Royal Lab for eight years, spent three months tracking them down after they ran away, and fought Gaster in an extremely violent battle that utterly destroyed said secret basement.  He’s clever, difficult to track, and probably pretty angry.  Sans sips his tea as his brain spins out a colorful variety of scenarios, each more horrific than the last.

Gaster clears his throat.  “I assume by your complete inaction that you’re as worried about this as I am?”

“Probably,” Sans says.

They sit at the kitchen table with their tea as Gaster searches for words.  The clock, which is still the dumb little space clock Gaster’s coworker found in the dump a year before Gaster found found two children in a bush, ticks along.  “I want you to know that I believe things will be alright.”

“How can you know that?” Sans asks the clock.

“I suppose I don’t.  It’s possible that I’m projecting my own wishes for your well-being onto my sense of the future, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.”

Sans watches the second hand move.  It helps to focus on something outside of himself.  “It’s been twenty years, Dings.  I’m an adult.  Why am I still so goddamn scared?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but Gaster treats it with gravity anyway.  “You learned some very good survival skills at a young age.  They served you well.  That kind of education doesn’t evaporate overnight, or even over a series of decades.”

“You been talking to Anne?”

“Many times, over the course of twenty years,” Gaster replies.  The corners of his mouth turn up just enough to suggest a smile.  “There’s nothing we can do tonight, why don’t you go to bed?  Things might look clearer in the morning.”

“He’s right,” says the guard in the livingroom, where she’s guarding the door and drinking her own tea.

“Oh, well then.  Who I am to challenge the popular vote?”  Sans mutters under his breath.  He dumps out the last of his tea in the sink and heads towards the room he now has to himself, pausing by the doorway to thank the guard for coming.  “You really think we’ll come up with something?”

“There’s a higher chance of coming to a valid conclusion once the shock wears off.”

Good enough.  Sans sighs heavily and slouches off to bed.

-

_ Everything is screaming.  Sans knows this isn’t the first time he’s been here, but he also knows he’s never seen this space before.  Countless events flash past, seemingly from the future?  Or possible futures?  He catches a few commonalities between them: an explosion, some kind of child--? _

Sans wakes with a start.  His bones are chilled and his teeth are on edge, and the sheets are snarled in his fingers.  He takes a moment the breath, then slowly unclenches his hands.

His phone is ringing.  Apparently, it’s what woke him up.

He taps the menu button.  When Gaster’s picture lights up the screen, he slides the phone open.  “Hey, Dings, where are you?”

_ “We’re in Hotland.” _

Sans feels the world drop out from under him.  Sometimes, when he can’t sleep at night and he’s feeling particularly masochistic, he’ll lie awake and try to remember details about his father: what color he was, how he held himself, how he sounded.  The details have become fuzzy over the years, but somehow, Sans immediately recognizes his voice.

_ “I wanted to let you know that your dear Doctor Gaster is having some difficulties with the Core.  You may want to get here before anything else goes wrong.” _

His right eye begins to ache.  He doesn’t answer.

_ “Do hurry.” _

The line goes dead.  Sans sets the phone down.  He breathes for several long minutes, fighting his own shock to try and come up with an answer to this.  His dad found him, he found Gaster, and something is happening in Hotland.  There’s no other way he could get Gaster’s phone.

Finally, he pulls himself out of bed, pulls on a hoodie and shoes, and throws open his door.  The gingerbread guard starts at the sudden noise.

“Is Gaster here?”  He asks on the off chance this is a bluff.

“No,” the guard says, straightening back up her chair, “He got a call from the lab and left about an hour ago.”

Sans takes a deep breath.  His jacket tries to slip off one shoulder, so he straightens it back out.  “We have to get to Hotland.”

-

It’s still late enough that the Capital streets are empty.  Sans and the guard sprint out of the apartment and skid down to the river.  By some stroke of luck, the Riverperson is available at the Capital dock.  Sans throws enough gold for three people into the jar and scrapes together enough manners to keep from swearing when he asks the Riverperson to gun it.

“It doesn’t matter how fast we go,” the Riverperson says as they cast off, “Things won’t play out until you get there.”

“What?”  Sans asks.

“You’re about to take a trip.  Try not to throw up.”

_ “What?” _

“I mean.  Tra-la-la.”

Further badgering doesn’t get the Riverperson to elaborate.  Sans wheedles a bit longer, but when the Riverperson continues to hold their peace, he slumps down in his seat next to the guard.  “What is the point of giving out mysterious clues if they don’t  _ help the person you’re giving them to. _ ”

The mineral stars glitter overhead and on the surface of the water.  Sans rests his arms on his knees as the guard pulls out some knitting to pass the time.  The fake stars haven’t changed since monsterkind was forced Underground, just stayed up there and watched generations of people live and die.  No plans, no cares.  Sans isn’t sure if that sounds good or unbelievably boring.

They make it to Hotland and hurl themselves off the skiff.  The Core lies over one of the largest lava flows in the region, not far from a river that runs parallel to the main Underground waterway.  The front of the building doesn’t look different from when building completed the day before.  Sans pulls the keys from his pocket and slots them into the doorknob, but hesitates..

_ Endless testing on top of caring for a new infant; sleeping on park benches and stealing leftovers from the trash; two enormous hands hoisting him into the air by his shirt, shaking him until his eyes rattles in his skull and one goes out entirely-- _

The guard pulls Sans out of his memories with a hand on his elbow.  She’s at least six inches shorter, so she may have been aiming for Sans’ shoulder.  “We’ve got this,” he says.

“How do you know?” Sans asks, staring at the door ahead.

“Because I’m not willing to believe anything else,” the guard replies simply.  “So there’s no reason to dwell on any other possibilities.”

Sans lays his hand over the guard’s, then unlocks the door.  The guard smiles at him, gently moves Sans aside so she can take point, and kicks the door in.

“Shouldn’t we, uh, try for stealth?”  Sans asks as they rush past the main lobby and start the long descent into the Core.

“There’s no point.  Your father already knows we’re coming.”  The guard takes the stairs three at a time, careening around corners and kicking off the walls to gain speed.

The control booth is almost two-hundred feet below the building.  It has a large switchboard, two microphones, and several computer monitors for keeping track of the various aspects of Core maintenance, and an enormous pane of magic-infused glass.  Sans finds himself thrown into the booth as he passes it, knocking over one of the two chairs as he sails inside.

“You stay here,” the guard says, standing just outside the booth with one hand on the door.

“No,” Sans disagrees, straightening himself out.

“Your best offense is that your magic can counter your father’s, and you can do that from here.  Taking you into the core would be a liability.”

She’s right, and Sans hates that.

“Plus, you can use the intercom as a distraction so I’ll have time to get in there.”

There isn’t time to argue.  Sans grits his teeth and spits a few choice threats around bodily safety, but doesn’t contradict him again.  The guard gives him a thumbs up and darts past the doorway towards the main reactor.

Sans climbs to his knees, still muttering complaints under his breath, and carefully peers over the control panels.  The booth overlooks the main floor of the reactor in all its glory: towering metal pipes and boilers on a raised platform, plugged directly into the Hotland central lava flow.  It’s supposed devours steam and bad feelings and spits back useable electricity, but something is wrong.  Steam and emotional magic gathered from various points in the past and present are hissing from several overstressed joints, and the entire system seems to be buckling outward.  Sans doesn’t dare risk using his own magic in such a heavily charged environment.

Gaster and Gerald are standing by the main valve.  They seem alright, but Sans’ attention is drawn to the man standing by the platform’s edge.  He’s in what Sans assumes is his first form (not the natural one, he’s always shifted depending on his needs and wore each form as naturally as the others), dressed in a Royal Penitentiary tunic.  A prisoner number stitched into the back.  He’s saying something to the others, but Sans can’t hear it without turning in.  He has a walkie-talkie in one hand, and is using the other to hold a small, armless child over the lava.  She’s crying silently, tears dripping off her face into the molten rock.  This is a hostage situation, and Gaster and Gerald have stayed to try and diffuse both it and whatever malfunction is affecting the Core.

For just a moment, Sans hates them for putting themselves in danger like this.

The moment passes.  Sans scans the control panel, positions himself in front of a microphone, and hits the button to activate the intercom.

The wall-mounted speakers screech to life.  Gaster covers his ears, but the man in the prison only tilts his head in what Sans assumes to be interest.  After all this time, his father is going to listen to him.  Sans calls up all the imagined conversations, all the discussions with Doctor Snowdrake, everything he’s ever wanted to say to the man currently holding most of his family and a small child hostage.

_ “Hey, it’s me, the kid you ruined.” _

_ “What the hell gave you the right to do this?” _

_ “Guess who remembers you?  Not your youngest son, because I found him a better dad and never told him you exist.” _

_ “Did you ever even care about us?  At all?” _

Sans evaluates the situation and discards each of these options in turn.  Finally, he clears his throat.  “Hi, Dad.”

The man looks up into the control panel.  When his eyes land on Sans, he smiles widely and brings the walkie-talkie to his mouth.  “Hello, Sans,” he says, voice coming through the speaker next to the microphone, “How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” Sans answers truthfully.  “Wanna tell me what’s going on here?”

“It’s quite simple, really: if either of your guardians move in any way that suggests they’re plotting against me, this young girl is going into the lava.”

Sans tamps down his rising panic, falling back on the nonchalance he uses to cover unpleasant emotions.  “I should have been more specific.  Why are you doing this?”

His father’s grin widens.  “My observant son.  Always looking for details so he can best understand the situation.  I’d say I was proud of you, but we both know that would be a lie.”

“I guess I didn’t turn out exactly how you wanted,” Sans agrees.  “Want to monologue about why you’re doing this?”

The grin trails off.  “You’ve developed a nasty sense of humor, Sans.  I have to say, that’s something of a disappointment.  Perhaps this is endeavor is a waste of time.”  He lowers the monster kid another precious inch closer to the lava.  She opens her mouth, but Sans can’t hear her scream through the glass.

Gaster, who has been using Sans’ distraction to fiddle with the few controls on the Core itself, takes a furious step towards Sans’ father.  Gerald, who has been helping, holds him back.

“No,” Sans says quickly, before anyone can get hurt, “Sorry, I won’t do it again.”

His father studies him.  “You’ve gone soft, too.  Another disappointment, but it works in my favor today.  I would like a chance to explain myself.”

“Explain away,” Sans says.  He keeps his eyes on his father, to makes sure nothing will draw attention to Gaster and Gerald as they resume work on the Core.

His father begins pacing, swinging the monster kid in one hand as he walks along the edge of the platform.  “I’ve been in prison for twenty years, Sans.  Do you know what that’s like?  It’s  _ hell. _  Every day, all the concentrate hopelessness threatens to drag you down into dust.  There’s no escaping it.

“But that’s not the worst of it.  No, the  _ worst _ of it was watching you and Papyrus, my most cherished experiments, my  _ sons, _ run away.  You were destined for great things, and you ran away.  I loved you, Sans.”

Sans swallows thickly.  It takes everything in him to keep from responding.

“And you turned your back on everything we achieved together.”  He sighs and sets the monster kid down, but keeps a firm grasp on her shoulders.  “I am beyond disappointed.  We could have achieved so much together.  We could have been a  _ family. _ ”

“I wish it could have been different,” Sans says quietly.

His father sighs.  “So do I.”

The watch each other for a long time.  Gaster and Gerald manage to keep the Core from overloading for another minute.

“But,” Sans’ father says, “It didn’t turn out that way.  We live in a world where you made different choices.  We have to live with that.”

He begins to turn back towards the core, where Gaster and Gerald are not being model hostages.

“Wait,” Sans says, desperately hoping to buy them more time.

At the same moment, the gingerbread guard comes hurtling across the room with a scream.  She tackles Sans’ father, sending them both sprawling across the platform.  The monster kid shrieks and sprints towards the Core, looking for either shelter or an adult to protect her.  Gerald opens his arms to catch her; the gingerbread guard draws back a fist as she pins Sans’ father in place; Sans’ father summons a handful of blue magic.   


“ _ No!” _  Sans yells.  Gaster says something he can’t hear without the walkie-talkie, but Sans suspects it’s a similar expression of alarm.

The already magic-saturated air catches on Sans’ father’s spark.  It accelerates the expansion of energy outwards from the Core and initiates a cascade failure of the various safety protocols.  Sans catches a glimpse of what could be fire or some kind of explosion.  He has just enough time to wonder why they hell they thought they could contain different types of energy in one system before the room is blacked out and the building disappears from the Underground.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A human child travels the complicated roads of monster existence (and lack thereof).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to [spocksbedsidemanner](spocksbedsidemanner.tumblr.com), who is an all around lovely person.caught my many, many spelling and grammar mistakes, and is an all around lovely person.

_201x:_ A human child falls into the Underground via a poorly guarded hole in Mount Ebbot.

 _201x (+2 months):_ The same human child leads Monsterkind to the surface and acts as the first arbitrator between Monsters and Humans. They are swiftly replaced by more experienced negotiators on both sides, but seeing a human child leading the 8-foot monarch of Monsterkind out of the darkness made quite the impression.

(This was a calculated performance on the 8-foot monarch’s part. It works well.)

 _201x (+1 year and some change):_ Monsters are beginning to integrate with the human population. Most live in one of two sister cities built on the east and south sides of Mount Ebbot. Some strike out into the world, protected by the newly crafted Monster Protection and Human Relations Act. The human child who made this possible lives with their monster guardian, former Queen Toriel, who now spends much of her time being called “Miss Toriel” by her students, “Tori” by her friends, and “mom” by her adopted human.

(A legally sanctioned human-monster family is met with prejudice in some places, but ultimately continues to pave the way towards peaceful interspecies relations when misguided humans who try to “rescue” the human child are met at the door with tea and cakes. Toriel keeps a number of baked goods on hand for just such occasions. This is a calculated move on her part.)

(It’s also a calculated choice on Frisk’s part. After all, their new parents are the political leaders of an entire race. Interest in public relations was bound to rub off at some point.)

Frisk insists on helping buy groceries, so on Saturdays they get up early to go to the local weekend market with Toriel. The local human and monster farmers have come together to build a permanent structure for it that’s quickly becoming something of a shopping district. Toriel uses her dinner budget on fresh vegetables, and her separate, slightly larger baking budget on supplies for unexpected guests. After food shopping, they wander the new shops to see what kind of businesses have come to Mount Ebbot.

“It is nice to have a wider selection of goods,” Toriel says as they pass a stationary shop, “I have enjoyed living on the surface once more, but cultivating such a remote area has been difficult. I miss the conveniences of living in a settled location.”

Frisk considers buying Toriel a new pen with their allowance (half a gold piece per week, which, according to the economic reports Frisk likes to read each morning, translates into $686.39USD, $975.85CAD, or €612.44). They discard the idea as not to Toriel’s tastes, and follow her as she moves on.

Several shops down, Frisk feels a chill. It feels like an empty space where something should be. Monsters constantly broadcast their feelings through low-grade emotional magic that always fills up an area, but somewhere nearby, there was a complete absence of feeling Frisk hasn’t felt since they lived with humans over a year ago.

“Frisk?” Toriel asks. “Are you alright?”

Frisk nods, taking her hand when she offers. They continue walking.

Frisk feels the same chill as they pass a shop with turning book racks. This time, the reason is obvious: a large section of space in front of the closest display is silent and grayscale. It’s like all noise and color have been sucked out, and standing in the center of this anomaly is a monster child, not much younger than Frisk. They appear to be some kind of armless reptile wearing a checkerboard shirt and a bow, and their eyes are wide and empty in their head.

“Oh,” Toriel says, “this looks nice!”

Frisk stares at the grey monster child. 

“I would like to step inside for a moment,” Toriel continues. She doesn’t seem to notice the grey child at all. “Would you care to join me?”

A quick check of the area shows that no one is reacting to the kid. The grey monster child stares back with a smile. It may be intended as a friendly gesture, but their blank eyes give it an unsettling effect.

Frisk decides to stay out here for now. Toriel gives an assurance she won’t be long and disappears into the bookshop.

“Yo,” the monster kid says.

Frisk asks why no one else can see them.

“Are you a--” the monster kid makes a noise like static, “--too?”

A what?

The monster kid grins widely. “Have you ever thought about a world where everything is the same, except you’re not there?”

Frisk says that they have, on occasion.

“Me too!” The monster kid’s grin falters. “I don’t like it. It’s terrifying.”

Frisk asks if they’re alright.

They look around, watching people enter and exit the shop. Watching people go about their daily lives. “I… don’t know. I don’t really remember. Is it always this busy?”

Frisk says that it’s sometimes this busy. They ask if there’s something they can do to help.

“I don’t think so.” The monster kid smiles again but it’s lost the eerie edge from earlier. They look resigned, but resigned to what? “You know, just admitting that makes me feel better. Thanks!”

Frisk is completely at a loss.

“Please forget about me,” they say. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

They ask what the monster kid means.

“Hello, my child,” says Toriel as she exits the shop.

Sound starts up again. Frisks glances at her for a moment. They look back to the monster kid, but they and the grey, silent space are gone.

“I have procured us a collection of crossword puzzles,” Toriel says, handing Frisk the book.

They take it and begin to flip through, still thinking about the monster kid’s last words. What could happen?

“One more thing,” says the kid’s voice from nowhere, “Tell Sans and Papyrus that Doctor Gaster says ‘hi’.”

-

“Doctor Gaster?” Papyrus asks as he stretches his nonexistent calf muscles. “No, I don’t know one.”

Frisk readjusts their position on Papyrus’ shoulders. After several failed attempts at running together due to mismatched leg length, Papyrus has started hoisting Frisk onto his shoulders for their morning jog. He calls it strength-cardio. Frisk suspects he likes the company.

They ask if Papyrus is sure. The grey monster kid was pretty specific.

“No, it doesn’t ring any bells.” Papyrus finishes his stretches and takes off down the road. “Although I’ve met so many people since we moved to the surface. Is he human?”

Frisk doesn’t think so.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll come up at some point. Water bottle, please.”

Frisk hands him his water bottle. They keep it in a small backpack they wear for jogging.

Papyrus raises the bottle to his mouth, only to be startled by a loud dinging noise just beside him. The water sprays across his face and drips down his jaw; Papyrus sputters loudly and throws the sports bottle in surprise. It sails through the air for a moment, then stops short in a burst of blue energy.

“Careful,” says Sans, who has appeared next to them. For some reason, he’s riding a tricycle. “You sure you know _water_ you’re doing?”

Papyrus plucks his water bottle out of the air with a scowl. “Very funny, Sans.”

“ _Wet-ever_ are you talking about?”

Frisk snorts and wipes the splash damage off their face.

“Hey, good one kiddo,” Sans says as Papyrus stomps his foot in agitation. “You really know how to go with the _flow_.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Papyrus says, readjusting Frisk on his shoulders. “You’ve already corrupted them enough for one day. Are you coming for a run with us or not?”

Sans joins them. Papyrus, carrying Frisk, runs on the road’s shoulder, and Sans pedals alongside them. Before long, he props his feet up on the handlebars. The bike continues moving forward.

“What,” Papyrus puffs, “is the point if you’re not going to exercise?”

“I get to spend time with my cool bro and cool human friend,” Sans replies.

Frisk appreciates the comment. Remembering the earlier conversation, they ask Sans if he knows anyone named Doctor Gaster.

Sans’ eyelights blink out. He loses his already precarious balance and nearly falls backwards over the bike, tipping the bike onto its back wheels before he grabs the handlebars and slams it back down.

“Sans, are you alright?!” Papyrus asks, helping him steady the tricycle.

“I’m okay,” Sans says. His voice is completely devoid of inflection and he looks sweaty. “Kiddo, where did you hear that name?”

Frisk, who managed to hold on to Papyrus’ shoulders when he dove to help Sans balance the bike, explains that someone asked them to relay a ‘hello’ from Doctor Gaster to both Sans and Papyrus.

“Do you know this person?” Papyrus asks.

Sans doesn’t answer immediately. He slowly sits on the bike seat and places his hands on the handlebars, staring straight ahead as though he’s about to take a ride. “Paps, mind if I pedal around with the kid a bit? I think we got some stuff to discuss.”

Papyrus looks to Frisk. Frisk says that’s alright, and requests to be let down. They dismount Papyrus’ shoulders and climb onto the back of Sans’ tricycle, wrapping their arms around his middle to stay on. Even through the jacket, he’s cool to the touch.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Papyrus asks again.

“Yeah bro, don’t worry about it. I’ll drop Frisk off at Toriel’s when we’re done.”

Sans leaves without further explanation. He pedals off down the road, takes a corner slightly too fast, uses blue magic to steady the bike, and keeps going.

“Papyrus will forget the conversation,” he says, still pedaling. “To facilitate that, he’ll also probably forget everything about you and me being there. That’s what happens when you bring up Gaster’s name.”

Frisk asks why.

“Because he’s not around anymore. He fell through a hole in time and space, and now any memory of him evaporates like water on a hot sidewalk. I suspect it’s the timeline’s attempt to patch itself. Hold on tight.” Sans gives up on pretense and lifts the entire bike into the air. They soar over the neighborhood rooftops, passing the convenience store and local school.

Frisk asks why Sans remembers him.

“That is a long story, kiddo.”

Frisk points out that they’re on a tricycle at least one-hundred feet in the air. They have nowhere to go and nothing to do.

“Point. Okay, let me make this story short: the Core originally generated energy through a combination of geothermal, emotional, and temporal components. Something went wrong, it exploded, and it took out everyone in the room, including Gaster. One of them was probably the one you saw. I was partially shielded from the blast and managed to not get sucked out of reality, but since I was in the explosion radius, I remember how the timeline used to be. You seem to remember because of all your time-alteration dealies.”

Frisk doesn’t apologize, but they do remind Sans that they promised not to SAVE or LOAD anymore.

“I know, kid,” Sans says, reaching back to ruffle Frisk’s hair. “It wasn’t an accusation, just a fact. You’re special.”

Frisk says that probably means Sans is special, too.

“Oh yeah, real special. I’m a special kind of guy.”

The tricycle begins to descend when they reach Frisk’s house. Sans drops them off at the front door. “Got someone waiting for you?”

Toriel is teaching this morning, but Frisk has a key. They invite Sans inside for tea and some emergency baking.

“Nah, I’m good. I need to think about some stuff.”

Frisk asks whether Sans thinks the monster kid and Gaster will be alright.

Sans’ face doesn’t change, but Frisk can tell he’s deciding between telling the truth and gently spackling over it with a lie. They wait patiently, trusting him to make the right choice. “I don’t know,” Sans finally says, “There are five all together. I see them around sometimes, but never the G-man. They’re not themselves anymore.”

Frisk marches down the stairs, across the lawn, and gives Sans an authoritative hug.

Sans gives a start, then sighs and wraps his arms around Frisk. “I’m okay, kiddo.”

Frisk informs him that they know Sans is alright.

The hugs goes on for minute while Sans hovers on the edge of something emotional. When he’s slightly more stable, Frisk tugs his jacket into place and takes a step back.

“Thanks,” Sans says. 

Frisk doesn’t comment as he wipes something off his face that’s probably water from Papyrus’ sports bottle. They send him on his way, still dwelling on the monster kid and this mysterious Doctor Gaster. Toriel won’t be home for a few hours, giving Frisk time to make some tea, grab a miniature pie, climb into Toriel’s favorite armchair (good for contemplation) and settle in for a long, hard think.

-

Now that Frisk knows what to look for, the grey monsters seem to be everywhere. They begin carrying a notebook to help keep them all straight.

There’s the monster kid, who tends to turn up outside of bookshops and places that sell games. They’ll seem relatively upbeat one moment, then trail off as they stare into the middle-distance, as though they’re listening to something Frisk can’t hear.

One grey monster seems particularly at odds with defining himself as a solid object. He rises from the ground near libraries, and it takes a lot of self-control for Frisk to keep themselves from startling. This grey monster has many arms and a hooked nose, and seems especially surprised when Frisk sits down to speak with him.

“It’s been so long since I spoke with anyone,” he explains, “I don’t know how long.”

They’re Frisk’s first lead on Doctor Gaster. He was apparently the Royal Scientist before Alphys (who, when asks, can’t remember anyone by that and insists Sans held the position before her). The grey monster with many arms waxes poetic about Gaster’s intelligence, but stops in the middle of explaining what happened, watching something Frisk can’t see the same way the monster kid does.

When the pause stretches out longer than a minute, Frisk asks him to continue.

“No, no,” he says, a good-natured smile growing across his blank face as they begin to fade. “It’s rude to talk about people who are listening.”

Another grey monster looks like a short gingerbread person. Frisk finds them hanging around the local police station. There’s something sad about the way they watch the officers work, as though they remember something long-gone that was once very dear to them.

This monster seems the least talkative. They reiterate Doctor Gaster’s brilliance and how something happened to him that involved the Core, but like the many-armed man, they refuse to elaborate.

The final grey monster is terrifying.

He appears over Frisk’s shoulder. Unlike the other grey monsters, this one seems unafraid to make direct contact, and falls into step with Frisk’s afternoon walk. He’s medium height, neither particularly tall nor short, has two crests down the back of his head, and is grinning widely. Frisk gets the impression the man is trying to intimidate them. Unfortunately, it’s working.

“I hear you’re asking about Doctor Gaster,” he says.

Frisk replies that they are. Does he know about him?

“I do. He’s the reason we’re like this.”

This is the first time a grey monster has referenced one of the others. Frisk asks what happened to everyone.

“We were caught in a brilliant man’s hubris. He killed us, and was killed himself.”

If they’re dead, how are they still here?

“An excellent question. I certainly don’t know.”

They walk in silence. Frisk considers a few questions before asking if this man knows where Gaster can be found.

“I could tell you, but what about the rest of us?”

If Gaster is as brilliant as they say, then he’s their best chance at returning to normal life.

“You make an excellent point.” The man stares straight ahead, still smiling. “You know, I would like another stab at life. You’ll find most of Gaster lurking around the new Core.”

Most of him?

“Why, certainly. Not all of him is there. In fact.” The man makes a complicated gesture and his palm fills with sickly purple glow. A small face appears on the blob of light. “I have a piece of him right here.”

The blob begins to wail.

Frisk sprints home and slams the door behind them.

-

The next day, Frisk packs a bag with sandwiches and water. They say they want to explore the old monster civilization and Toriel understands the need to understand (if not the things Frisk wants to understand). She gives them a few small tarts in a cooler and a picnic blanket to eat on, and hugs them goodbye. Frisk promises to return by dinner, and sets off.

It’s less than an hour to the mouth of the Underground, and less than that to get to Hotland. Frisk thinks about the two months after they fell through a hole in Mount Ebbot. This place seemed much bigger at the time.

The doors to the Core lobby are stiff with disuse. Leaving the Underground meant dismantling all available technology and structures for parts, and the Core was no exception. The front room is devoid of furniture, everything is coated with a thin layer of dust, and the overhead lights flicker weakly when Frisk turns them on. Thankfully, the environmental controls seem to be intact, and after a few minutes of fiddling Frisk has a reprieve from the heat of Hotland’s lava flows. They take the opportunity to spread out Toriel’s picnic blanket and eat lunch.

Food consumed, they repack their bag and venture further into the building. Frisk consults a map behind where the reception desk used to be, and heads for the area marked “Security Clearance Required.” 

The halls are eerily quiet. Frisk can hear their footsteps echoing back at them. Old security cameras sleep in the corners, and every light seems to be experiencing some kind of power fluctuations. It would be easy to miss a grey patch of space when Frisk’s nerves are so on edge.

They finally come to an imposing door with a sign that reads “LEVEL RED CLEARANCE ONLY.” Luckily, the security locks were disabled when the building was shut down, and the door creaks open easily. The other side is a long set of poorly lit stairs that disappear into darkness after the first flight. Frisk adjusts their bag on their shoulders and presses on.

The stairs go on for a long time. Frisk loses track of the number of flights long before they reach a door marked “Control Booth” in messy handwriting. Behind it is a small, gloomy booth with a dead control panel. Frisk pushes some of the many buttons, but nothing happens. They continue on.

Finally, they reach the bottom. There isn’t a sign on the last door, just a comically large wheel in place of an opening mechanism. The door is cracked open. Despite the weight, Frisk manages to pull it wide enough that they can squeeze through.

Even shut off, the Core is exactly as imposing as Frisk remembers. It sits dormant on a platform over what’s supposed to be a bubbling pool of lava, but the room is silent. Frisk has to glance down to see that, yes, the lava is still there and extremely hot. It’s not making any noise because a black and white man is sitting in front of what used to be the Core. He’s hunched over his own legs with his cracked face in both hands, staring into the depths of the Underground’s former energy source.

He seems to be melting?

Frisk walks the perimeter of the room so they don’t startle the man, but he doesn’t look away from the Core. They approach slowly and sit several paces away.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the man says. He sounds like he’s speaking from the opposite end of a very long hallway.

Frisk says it’s certainly something.

“I think I made this,” the man continues, “but I can’t quite remember.”

They sit in contemplative silence. 

“I think it was quite the undertaking. I think there was a very good reason this needed to exist, and that important people were at risk if it didn’t come together properly.” He tilts his head to one side in thought. “There were specific people I wanted to protect, but I can’t remember their names, or their faces, or where they came from.”

Frisk studies the intricate machinery. The man studies something that may be in front of him, or may be several years behind him.

Frisk asks if he would like a sandwich.

The man frowns at the unexpected question. He slowly unfolds his back, like he’s not sure exactly how to sit up straight, and finally looks away from the Core with a puzzled look on his face.

Frisk sets out each sandwich option in turn: vegetable medley, ham and cheese, and gluten-free tomato pesto. They also have some water, and a small butterscotch pie.

The man looks over the lunch choices. He looks Frisk over. He looks confused.

Frisk waits patiently.

Slowly, like every other movement he’s made so far, the man moves the tomato pesto to one side. “I think,” he says, “That I hate tomato.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk sits Gaster down with two old acquaintances for a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re in the home stretch! This one is a bit shorter because it reached a natural breaking point. I think the next chapter will be the last one. As always, thanks to [spocksbedsidemanner](spocksbedsidemanner.tumblr.com) for beta editing!

They sit together, puzzling out Gaster’s missing pieces. Frisk asks about his life; Gaster tells the stories he knows and makes note of the ones he doesn’t remember. The answers seem to come easier as he goes along.

Frisk guesses that as they learn more about Gaster’s place in the timeline, it solidifies him in it, allowing him to remember more about himself, which he then tells Frisk in a positive life-affirming feedback loop. 

Gaster, who is looking slightly less runny, points out that there’s no way for Frisk to know that, really. “By your logic, being around another living monster could be what’s helping to ground me here.”

Frisk points out that they are not a monster.

Gaster squints at them. He reaches out with a hand that seems detached from the rest of him and touches the side of Frisk’s head. “Are you sure? You seem unusually magical for a non-monster.”

They patiently allow the poke. They’re absolutely certain that they’re human.

Gaster frowns. He stares into the middle distance, the same way Frisk has seen all the grey monsters do. “This is the Core?” he asks.

It is.

He takes in the layer of dust coating the floor and the way the machinery sits, dark and still, in the chamber. “Where is everyone?”

Frisk considers it excellent progress that Gaster is noticing the world around him.

“That doesn’t answer the question. Where are the other scientists? Where is--” Gaster’s frown deepens. “Someone worked on this with me. I don’t remember who.”

Frisk has an inkling who it may have been. If Gaster existing in one set of memories strengthens his place in the timeline, they reason, having him in more than one memory might be enough to bring him back. They suggest heading to the surface to find someone who can fill in the blanks.

“I think I’ve tried to leave.” Gaster shuffles a few steps forward, leaving a long inky trail behind him. “But if I go too far, I begin to lose myself again.”

Frisk runs a finger through the black residue Gaster left behind. It’s thick enough that it doesn’t drip, which is an improvement over the constant dripping and reformation Gaster was going through when they arrived. They wipe the goop off on their pants and begin to unpack their backpack

-

Frisk’s lunch packs neatly into the blanket Toriel gave them, and Gaster manages to fit himself into their bag without leaking. They leave the Core, walk through the deserted streets of the Capital, and pass through the cave that used to keep monsterkind imprisoned in the Underground.

“We really made it,” Gaster says from between the zipper teeth as Frisk steps into the sun.

All the monsters made it. Every single person lives above ground now. Frisk puffs with exertion and readjusts the bag on their shoulders. Not even semi-liquid men who fell out of time and space will be left behind on their watch, they tease gently.

Gaster’s face is turned skyward. “I remember this blue,” he says quietly. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen it.”

They make their way to New-New Home’s research district. Luckily, Alphys is in her office. She opens the door for Frisk and nearly faints when a large, indistinct mass begins unfolding from their backpack.

“What,” Alphys asks as the shapeless form reconstitutes into something twice her size and begins drifting towards her bookshelf, “is that?”

Frisk explains that this is the monster who was Royal Scientist before her.

“This isn’t Sans,” Alphys says, eyeing the slimy trail Gaster has left on her floor.

“I know that name,” Gaster faintly says from where he’s examining Alphys’ notebooks.

Frisk says they think this man might be Sans’ mentor, in another time. They give a brief outline of how Gaster seems to be existing in a separate time-space from the rest of them, but that they suspect he’s been drawn to this timeline because it’s where he originated.

“May I see your work?” Gaster asks faintly, a hand hovering over one of Alphys’ reports. “This feels important.”

Alphys dismissively waves him on, already lost in thought about an existence in the cracks between universes. After much consideration, some scientific-sounding babbling, and one sheet of paper covered in equations, she concludes that it’s not impossible. Frisk watches the proceedings without much to add, but appreciates Alphys’ contribution to the theory.

“You continued the determination project,” Gaster says. His voice has lost some of the echoing quality it carried in the Core chamber.

Alphys winces. “It… d-didn’t do what I’d hoped.”

Without moving from the shelf, Gaster reaches across the room and places a hand on her shoulder. “You couldn’t have known.”

Alphys twists her fingers together and avoids eye contact. “I should have known. I should have been more careful, I shouldn’t have run the experiments on my own.”

“You didn’t,” Gaster says, “I missed it too.”

“Yes, but you’re brilliant. If you’d been there when I started the trials--” Alphys stumbles over her words. “You… would have figured out the results before they happened.”

Gaster looks surprised by her certainty. “Thank you. I’ll take your word for it.”

“How could I know that?” Alphys asks herself.

“I think we’ve known each other for a long time,” Gaster says slowly. “I think I watched you grow up.”

Alphys studies his face. She picks up the hand on her shoulder, carefully bending the articulated joints, and bats the air. Her fingers catch on some kind of invisible string, connecting the hand with the rest of Gaster’s body. Her eyes widen. “You were the Royal Scientist.”

“That sounds important,” Gaster replies.

“It was,” she says breathlessly, letting the hand go. “You were.”

Gaster gives a lopsided smile. Frisk beams.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Hey Al, I’ve got the results you--”

Sans takes one look at Gaster, grabs Frisk, and blinks them away to Toriel’s living room. He turns to disappear again, probably to whisk Alphys to safety, but Frisk grabs his arm. She’s not in danger, they say, Gaster isn’t going to hurt her or anyone else. They’re sure of it.

He puts both hands on Frisk’s shoulders. Frisk gets the impression that, if Sans were taller, he’d be kneeling down so they’d be at the same eye-level. This is probably to give his next words extra gravity.

“Kid,” he says, “I know you want to save everyone, and that’s real noble. But Gaster is outside of time and space. If you try to bring him into this timeline, the incompatibility could cause it to destabilize out from under us.”

Frisk puts their hands on Sans’. They say that they have to try.

Sans takes a deep breath, like he’s trying to reign himself in. You’re willing to risk every human and every monster in this plane of existence, just for the possibility of bringing back one.”

Frisk has a good feeling about this. It’s the same one that got them through the Underground in one piece. They take Sans’ hands in theirs, holding them gently. No one deserves to be alone like that.

Sans’ eyes narrow. “I can’t stop you, huh?”

Frisk assures him that they know what they’re doing, and requests that Sans return them to the laboratory.

Sans squeezes Frisk’s hands. “I would, but wouldn’t you know it, I’m all outta magic.”

Frisk pats Sans’ arm and says they understand. They pull a light jacket from the coat rack on the way towards the door, and say they hope Sans will understand, too.

-

The unplanned trip to Toriel’s house gives Frisk time to collect Papyrus on the way back. He is, of course, thrilled at the thought of a possible new friend, and lets Frisk ride piggy-back as he sprints to the lab.

“This is truly brilliant,” Gaster is saying as he pours over Alphys’ reports. 

“Hello!” Papyrus exclaims, bursting into Alphys’ office just as her water boiler begins to whistle, “I heard there’s a new monster in town!”

Alphys gets up from the couch to turn it off. “Um, kind of. Frisk, what happened with Sans?”

Frisk climbs down from Papyrus’ shoulders and explains that Sans has complicated feelings around all this.

“Too complicated to see his d-dad?” Alphys says as she pours the water.

“Sans has a dad?” Papyrus asks. He considers this for a moment. “I have a dad?!”

At the same time, Gaster jolts in place. “I have a son?!”

Frisk is willing to bet he has two sons, though they don’t know the story behind that. They take a seat at Alphys’ small conference table and request sugar in their tea.

As it turns out, Alphys is uniquely qualified to explain the situation. The next hour is spent listening to her summary of how Gaster adopted two skeleton children he found in a bush.

“I have two dads?” Papyrus asks over his third cup of tea.

“There is a man who made you, and there is a man who raised you. You have one dad,” Alphys says firmly.

Frisk nods in agreement. They have one mom who, by genetics, isn’t their mom.

“That’s true,” Papyrus says slowly. He looks at the mass of slow-moving ink that is his father. Gaster has continued to solidify as Alphys explained his family situation, and is now sitting in more of a slouch than an ooze. “I don’t remember anything about the shifting man, but I’m starting to remember you, Dad.”

Gaster beams. He seems incredibly pleased at the thought of being a father.

Frisk coughs politely and outlines their theory about using people’s memories to anchor Gaster in the timeline. Alphys ticks off the people who would be best for this. Unsurprisingly, Sans’ name is at the top of the list.

“Maybe you should talk to him,” Alphys says to Papyrus.

“I certainly will,” Papyrus says with a huff, already standing from the couch like he’s going to storm back home and physically carry Sans to the lab.

Gaster puts a hand on his arm. Both skeletal hands were once floating in mid-air, they’re now connected to his body with thin purple strands. “Wait.”

“How can I wait?” Papyrus shouts. “I lost you, and now there’s a chance you might finally come home and the only thing standing between us and that is Sans being lazy.”

“He isn’t being lazy,” Gaster says softly. “He was caught in the same explosion that knocked me out of the timeline.”

Gaster talks about the space between timelines. There’s nothing; a vast, boundless void that stretches endlessly in all directions. It’s huge, and anything in it is swallowed by the soulless infinity. He remembers being consumed in an instant, then rebuilt the next; he remembers being bound to the Core, existing both in the lava chamber and in the void, and then being destroyed again. He was thinly spread across space, fragmented, as time moved in unpredictable directions and, at times, didn’t move at all.

He also remembers Sans. They hurtled past each other, briefly meeting eyes as Sans desperately reached for him, and he remembers feeling his soul rip apart knowing this person he loved (who was here, and in the Core control booth as it exploded, and at the same time crying furiously in his arms two decades ago, but was most probably someone he’d never met before) was lost. Then Sans was gone, and never existed in the first place.

They ran into each other a few times over the following span of time (a quick calendar check pinpoints the Core explosion to a fall evening two years ago), but couldn’t do more than look at each other in the empty, frozen void. Sans had realized early on that allowing the void to intersect with regular space would lead to utter destruction of their timeline. Gaster hazily remembers him explaining this. Unwilling to take the risk, Sans stopped trying to coax Gaster’s memory, and Gaster stopped trying to remember. The short, weightless stranger would watch him with resignation. They’d stopped talking altogether.

Papyrus listens to Gaster’s rambling explanation and holds his hands. They’re skeletal hands, Frisk realizes, finally solid enough to take recognizable form. They wonder if Gaster modeled them after the skeleton brother’s hands.

“Yes, Sans is avoiding me,” Gaster concludes, “but don’t be too hard on him. He just wants to live.”

“This isn’t living,” Papyrus says firmly, “You aren’t living, and even though we’ve escaped the Underground, he’s still wasting away. I don’t know about the void, but I do know he needs us. He needs his friends and family,” he says with a gesture to Frisk and Alphys. “And he needs you.”

Gaster’s head tilts to one side as he thinks about this.

“Please,” Papyrus says, squeezing his hands, “Come home. There’s a much better chance we’ll figure this out if we do it together.”

Gaster looks to Frisk and Alphys, who are watching intently. Alphys gives a thumbs-up. Frisk copies it a moment later.

He smiles at the both of them and squeezes Papyrus’ hands back. “Alright. We’ll need all the monsters who were in the Core that day, but I think we can bring everyone back safely.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for folks to get their remember on!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience everyone. Did you know that you're the coolest readers out there? BECAUSE YOU ARE. THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT!

Alphys calls Undyne to ask for her Aunt’s address while Papyrus sprints home.  Someone grabs the phone mid-conversation and yells about how Alphys DOESN’T SPEND ENOUGH TIME WITH THEM AS A FAMILY, ending with an invitation to tea at Undyne and Alphys’ apartment.  Frisk insists they stop by a bakery on the way to pick up refreshments.  It seems like the polite thing to do.

The shouty woman turns out to be former Captain Donahue, covered in battle scars that she loves to talk about.  She and Undyne wrestle over who gets to pour the tea.

“So,” Undyne says around a spider don’t after Frisk explains the situation, “You’re the one I almost bit as a kid.”

“I can’t believe I forgot you,” Donahue says.  “I must be getting old.”

“We’re all getting old, but that’s not what happened,” Gaster replies.  He stopped dripping shortly after the meeting with Alphys, and has become considerably more solid since meeting with Donahue.

“We’ll,  _ I’m _ getting old.  You’re never going to age,” Donahue says with a jagged grin, elbowing Gaster hard enough to jostle the tea in his cup.  “Next time, you’ll have to be the one that remembers me.”

They reminisce together.  Alphys and Undyne add their childhood memories to the conversation.  Frisk is content watching people come back together.  They promised to save  _ everyone _ from the Underground, and they intend to see that through.

“You talk to your kids yet?”  Donahue asks.

“I-- hmm.”  Gaster stirs his tea as he collects his thoughts.  “Papyrus and I had a short discussion, but I’d like to sit down to talk about his childhood in detail.”

“You can’t find Sans, can you?” Donahue says.  Her expression says that she isn’t surprised in the least.

“I saw him briefly,” Gaster defends.

Frisk points out that it was in the moment before Sans ran away.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised.”  Donahue finished her tea, stretches her arms, and pulls out her phone.  “Undyne, put on some more tea.  I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Alphys asks, “Where are you going?”

She juts a finger at Undyne.  “If this kid, who is for all intents and purposes  _ my _ kid, started avoiding me?  I’d know something was wrong and I’d drag her home to figure it out.  And since your kid is also kind of my kid, I figure the same rules apply.”

Frisk says that Papyrus is already on it.

“If Papyrus had managed to wrangle his brother, they’d already be here by now.  I’m going to track him down and  _ make _ him talk to his dad.”

“Hell yeah!”  Undyne cheers, “Captain Donahue dragging suspects in off the streets!”

Gaster raises a hand in comment.  “Sans is not a suspect, and while I appreciate your help, please don’t hurt the man I presume to be my son.”

Donahue cracks her knuckles with a grin.  “Don’t worry, Doc, nonviolent persuasion is my specialty.”

-

Donahue sets out to find Sans.  Alphys, Frisk, Undyne and Gaster split into two teams to search for the grey monsters: Alphys and Undyne go to the Royal Guard Archives (used to house records from when the Royal Guard was still active) to find information about the gingerbread guard and shape-shifter, while Frisk and Gaster start looking for the monster kid and Gaster’s former lab assistant.  All of them make plans to meet back at the apartment after nightfall.

The original plan was to track down the monster kid and ask them to help find the other grey monsters, but it turns out Gaster has a natural sense of the grey monsters’ locations.  He drifts along the streets of New Capital, seemingly taking in the sights at random, until he leads them down a side alley by the candy shop where the monster kid is eating a discarded cinnamon bun.

“Hey,” they call as Frisk gets closer, “You found him!”

Gaster slides forward.  “Hello, Monster Kid.”

Frisk is surprised to learn that  _ Monster Kid _ is their actual name.

“Well, yeah.  Why did you think people were calling me that?”

Frisk finds monster naming conventions to be baffling.

Gaster speaks with them for a while.  Monster Kid talks about their time trapped in the Underground, and watching people emerge from the caves once the barrier lifted.  They cheered as monster-human negotiations got underway and New Capital began to take shape.  They felt a combination of pride and emptiness as the world moved on without them.

Frisk, who has been very patient up until now, asks about the Monster Kid who used to idolize Undyne.

“That’s my twin,” Monster Kid exclaims, “We hatched from the same egg!”

Frisk, child of the Monster Monarch and renowned Interspecies Diplomat, nods in fake understanding.

Monster Kid talks more about themselves and their life, helping Frisk generate new memories that will keep them in this timeline.  By the end of the conversation, they’re looking much more stable.

Gaster also looks more stable.  He rattles off an explanation about his corporeal form being linked to the stability of the timeline when Monster Kid asks, but Frisk tunes him out in favor of studying the face that’s just emerged from the ground.  They wave at it.  An arm materializes and waves back.

“…so it will be key to find the other monsters that were in the Core that day,” Gaster concludes, “We have some friends looking for the more volatile ones, but we still need to find the man who was with me that day.”

Frisk tugs on his coat and points at the face in the ground.

“I heard you were in town,” Gerald says faintly, giving another wave.

They go through the same remembering process.  Gerald doesn’t seem to have adapted to half-life as well as Monster Kid, but luckily, Gaster has first-hand memories to cement his place in the timeline.  Frisk wanders into town for tea, and comes back to all three monster seated in the side alley, trading stories about their time in the void.

“Thank you,” Gaster says as Frisk hands him a cup, “This has been an extremely beneficial conversation.  I’m disappointed we didn’t try to spend time together before now.”

Frisk points out that they didn’t have the means to find each other, let alone any reason to believe their situations weren’t unique.

“They make a good point,” Gerald agrees.  His voice still has an echoing quality to it, but he can no longer fully immerse himself in the ground.  Frisk smiles into their tea, and privately considers this to be excellent progress.

-

They pick up dinner sandwiches on the way back.  They scroll through their contacts while their order comes together, and dial the one labeled ‘Mom’.

Toriel picks up on the third ring.   _ “Hello, my child.  How is your journey faring?” _

Frisk says it’s going well.  They have someone they’d like to introduce to Toriel later, but for now they’re going to have dinner with Undyne and Alphys.

“ _ I understand.  Tell them I said ‘hello’,” _ Toriel says. 

Frisk can hear the smile in her voice.  They tell her they’ll be home before too much longer.  The monster behind the counter calls their order number, and they say a quick goodbye.

_ “I love you too,” _ Toriel replies as she hangs up.

“You can’t know how long this will take,” Gaster says, taking the larger sandwich bag so Frisk doesn’t have to carry it.

Frisk disagrees.  They’re fairly certain their services won’t be needed much longer tonight.

-

Someone is shouting in Undyne and Alphys’ apartment.  Frisk puts an ear to the door before knocking.  They can hear an argument brewing on the other side, and what sounds like someone pacing rapidly in the main room.

“…still the same man,” says a voice that sounds like Papyrus’.

“He’s not.”  This one sounds like Sans.

“How would you know?  You haven’t spoken with him for  _ years.” _

“Well, since you seem to know more about it than me, maybe you can tell: if I haven’t spoken with him in years, who was floating around in the void with me all that time?  Because, in case you hadn’t noticed—”

There’s a noise like lighting zinging across a confined space.

“—I spent a considerable amount of time out there too _. _ ”

“Oh, oh, I know this one,” Papyrus says with fake excitement, “Let’s see.  Our  _ father _ , who you didn’t tell me about since he disappeared, and also our  _ real father _ , who you  _ never _ told me about!”

“Papyrus,” someone else says sharply.  It could be Donahue or Undyne.

“ _ You told him?!” _  Sans roars.

“Don’t blame her just because you  _ didn’t _ tell me!”  Papyrus yells back.  “Why didn’t you tell me we had two dads?”

“We don’t!”  It sounds like Sans has also begun pacing.  Frisk imagines the skeleton brothers angrily stomping around each other in the sitting room.  It would be funny if the subject matter weren’t so dire.

“I should be in there,” Gaster whispers from over Frisks’ shoulder, where he’s also listening in on the argument.

“We have  _ one _ dad,” Sans insists, “You don’t—You have  _ no idea _ what it was like.”

“And who’s fault is that, hmm?!”

Luckily, the door is unlocked.  Frisk and Gaster sneak into the apartment, carefully easing the door shut behind them.  Sans and Papyrus are indeed both pacing the length of the room, angrily gesturing and pointing at each other in turns.  Undyne and Alphys are watching the proceedings from the couch, while Donahue rolls her eyes and polishes a sword in an armchair.

“Mine, okay, it was mine.  I didn’t tell you, and I told them not to tell you,  _ and I did it because I love you!” _

Papyrus is seething with indignation.  “You had no right--”

“You’re right!  You’re right, I should have--”  Sans’ pacing comes to a stop.  His rare fit of anger seems to abate as suddenly as it came on, leaving him pale and drained.  “You’re right.  I should have told you when you became an adult.”

Having Sans side with him takes the explosive edge off of Papyrus rage.  He takes a few deep breaths to get his shouting under control.  “Why didn’t you?”

“Because it’s not safe for us to be around him.”  Sans crosses the carpet and reaches up to put his hands on Papyrus’ shoulders.  “You don’t remember because you were just a baby, but I do.  He was dangerous before he spent twenty years locked up for theft and murder, he’ll just be more dangerous now.”

Papyrus holds Sans’ wrists.  “He’s our  _ father. _ ”

“ _ No he isn’t _ .”

It comes out so harshly, Papyrus is taken aback.  Everyone in the room, who were already silent, now seems to be holding their breath.

Sans clears his throat and tries again in a gentler tone.  “No, he isn’t.  I went out into the world because I believed that you deserved more than that man could give you.”  He holds Papyrus’ face with both hands.  “When this is over, I promise I’ll tell you everything about where we came from, but for now,  _ please. _  I’ve done everything to keep you safe since you were created.  Let me be your protective big brother one more time.”

Papyrus looks like he’s brimming with questions.  He kneels down and wraps both arms around Sans.  They cling to each other for a long moment.

“Okay,”  Papyrus says quietly when the pull back.  “But after you find him, you owe me an explanation.”

“I do,” Sans replies, straightening his jacket.  Frisk notices it’s older than the one he usually wears, with patches lovingly sewn into the elbows and neat lines of stitching where the hem has been repaired.  He readjusts the fabric across his shoulders, then flashes Papyrus a shaky grin.  “I promise, I’ll spare no detai--”

He catches sight of Gaster over Papyrus’ shoulder.

Gaster smiles and waves.

Sans stares at him.

Papyrus realizes something is going on.  He glances back and returns Gaster’s wave.

“Sans,” Donahue says quietly, “Go talk to your dad.”

Sans maneuvers so he’s standing between Papyrus and his dad.  When nothing happens, he slowly shuffles across the room towards Gaster.

“Do you know who you are?” he asks cautiously.

“I do,” Gaster says.  He puts both hands on Sans’ shoulder, the way Sans was holding Papyrus’ shoulders a moment ago.  Gaster smiles.

Sans continues to stare.  He touches one of the hands resting on his shoulder.  It’s completely solid, and the string attaching it to Gaster’s body now runs through a clearly defined sleeve.  “Do you know who I am?”

“I do, my son,” Gaster says.

Sans tentatively touches Gaster’s coat.  When his fingers to slide through, he grabs it with both hands and hangs on.  “H-hey, Dings.  Long time no see.”

“Too long,” Gaster agrees, gently pulling Sans in for an embrace.

Sans blinks in frozen uncertainty.  Papyrus sweeps them both up in his arms, and only then does Frisk catch a small, tentative smile on his face.

-

Donahue kicks of the debriefing of their three-pronged plan by picking Sans up by the back of his jacket.  It seems to be for demonstration purposes.

“Found a weenie, brought a weenie in.  Gaster is solid.”  She says.  “Mission successful.”

She hands Sans off to Papyrus and grabs her sandwich from the bag.  Papyrus sets Sans back on the couch next to Gaster, then takes his own seat on Gaster’s other side.

Frisk gives a brief explanation of how they found Monster Kid and Gerald.  They’re laying low until Gaster makes contact with the other two grey monsters, which will hopefully be enough to bring all five of them back into alignment with the timeline.

Alphys finishes the meeting by pulling out two manilla folders.  “Turns out the records are exactly where they’re supposed to be, but no one has noticed them since the Core explosion.  I guess they got caught in the same perception filter that kept us from noticing anyone was missing.”

She opens a folder on the coffee table.  Inside is a picture of the gingerbread monster Frisk saw.  She’s wearing an official Royal Guard uniform, and has a small metal rectangle attached to her breastplate.  “This is Officer Lyrata.  Her last assignment was to guard the Gaster apartment after--”

Alphys opens the second folder.  This one has a mug shot of a reptilian-looking man in a prisoner’s tunic.  “This man,” she continues, “Escaped from prison.  No name on record.  It looks like he was serving a 20 year sentence for theft of royal property, felony child abuse, and kidnapping.  There’s also a note in here that says he’s also charged with human murder, but the legal systems had no way to process that at the time.”

Papyrus examines the picture closely.

“Frisk,” Alphys says, “Is this the man you saw?”

Frisk says that it is.

“Sans?”  She asks tentatively.

“That’s dad alright,” Sans says, crossing his arms.  “Hey Undyne, think you can get his sentence extended for tampering with the Underground’s primary energy source?”

“Don’t see why not,” she says.  Her arms are also crossed and she’s scowling at the file.  “He got one of my best officers wiped out of the timeline.  Let’s add assault on a Royal Guard to the list, too.”

“Alright, we know who this is.  Now we just need to find him, bring him back, and put him back in jail.”

Frisk says that last time, this man found them.  They don’t know how to find him again.

“I’ll find him.”  Sans says.

Papyrus, who has been studying the picture, looks at him.  “Are you sure?”

“It’s the only way to bring everyone else back, right?  So, I’ll go find him and make sure he’s on board.”

“I like that plan, except for the part where Sans implies he’s doing it alone,” Donahue says.  “I’m going, too.”

“Donnie, you don’t--”

Donahue aims a clawed finger in Sans’ direction.  “Don’t you ‘Donnie’ me, young man.  I personally oversaw your case the first time around, I’m not going to let you go into this by yourself.”

“Me too,” Papyrus says.

“No,” Sans and Donahue reply firmly.

“I also disagree,” Gaster adds.

“Why not?”

“He’s a dangerous man,” Donahue says. “You can meet him once he’s back behind bars.”

“But I can help!”

“Paps,” Sans says.

“After all this time, maybe he’s changed.  And why does Sans get to go?”

“ _ Paps _ ,” Sans says more firmly.  “Even if he has changed, what could he possibly say to us?  To  _ you? _ ”

Papyrus looks like he wants to argue the point, but holds himself back at the last moment.  “Let me know as soon as you catch him.”

“Will do,” Donahue agrees.

“We’ll catch him, you and I can sit down together and talk about what happened, and then we can go see him,” Sans promises.

Frisk asks how he plans to find this man.

Sans rolls his shoulders.  “Pretty sure if I just hang out in empty places, he’ll find me.”

-

Frisk tries to volunteer for the finding mission, but with the  _ child abuse _ and  _ human murder _ charges on the man’s rap sheet, they are firmly told to go home for this part.  This was the expected outcome.  They make Alphys promise to call if there are any developments, then head out into the city.

This sun is just starting to set as Frisk leaves the apartment building, and shops are lighting up as darkness sets in.  Frisk adjusts their bag on their shoulders and takes the best-lit paths.

Sans steps out of a side street as Frisk passes.  He has both hands tucked into the pockets of his worn old hoodie.  “Hey, kiddo.”

Frisk says they thought Sans didn’t want them involved in this.

“I don’t, but I’ve got some time before I need to go dad-hunting.  Figured I’d walk you home.

Frisk asks if Sans thinks they’re in danger.

He shrugs.  “I don’t think so.  Dad never hated humans, he just wanted to get out of the Underground.  Someone more emotionally stable than me might say he was doing what he thought was best for monsterkind.  Not me, you understand, just.  Someone else.”

Frisk nods.  Sans falls into step with them.  The darkness hasn’t quite settled, and the various shops don’t have many night-market patrons yet.  They walk together through the sparse crowds.

Frisk asks why Sans didn’t just teleport them home.

“I wanted to stretch my legs before getting the show on the road.”

Papyrus kept bugging him for details, didn’t he?

Sans chuckles.  “Kid has a good sense of curiosity, I’ll give him that.  Too bad it comes with a bad sense of self preservation.”

Frisk says that Papyrus is lucky to have Sans looking out for him.

“Heh, yeah.” 

They walk together.  The early stars begin to pepper across the sky.

“So I was also hoping to say some stuff before everything goes down tomorrow.”  Sans says in a way that's far to nonchalant to be casual.

Frisk gestures him on.

“Well, uh.” He coughs into his fist. “You saw my telescope, right? The one with the—”

Ink on the lens, yes. Frisk knows.

“Yeah, that one. It's a good prank. I found the telescope in the dump as a kid, and brought it home and repaired and polished until it was good as new. It was great for studying the sparkling rock underground, but I never told anybody that I kept it because I really, honestly wanted to look up at the real night sky one day. I wanted to sit above ground and see planets and stars out there in space.” He looks at Frisk. “We'd never have made it to the surface without you, and I know everybody's already showered you with gratitude a thousand times over, but I never got around to saying anything myself. So, thanks for that.”

Frisk tells Sans that he's welcome.

“And now, after you've gone and saved all of monsterkind—”

Except for a few.

“Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. No one would have blamed you for sacrificing five monsters to save the rest of the species, but you decided that wasn't good enough. You really, honestly wanted to save everyone, and one of those was the guy who raised Papyrus and me. Without you, the world would have kept going without them, and without him. I never would have seen Gaster again. So, thanks, for bringing him back.”

Frisk gives a stoic thumbs-up.

“And you're so weirdly modest about it!” Sans reaches over and ruffles Frisk's hair. “God, you're cool.”

The hair-mussing leave Frisk with something like a bird's nest on their head. Peering out of their messy bangs, they can see Sans smiling.  They’ve never seen the tension around his eyes let up like this before.  They decide this is alright.

“What a touching scene,” says a voice from the crowd.

Frisk looks up sharply.  They were so busy gauging Sans’ emotional reaction, they weren’t paying attention.  Color has drained out of the immediate area, leaving this section of the world in doused in grayscale.  It’s enough to cover Sans, Frisk, and a man of medium height wearing a prisoner’s tunic.

“Hello,” the last grey monster says with a wave.

Sans seizes Frisk by the backpack and jumps them away.  Frisk gets the feeling he picked a distance and direction at random, because they rematerialize on the roof of a nearby building.  The world around them is normal for a moment before the muted grey swirls back in.

“You can’t outrun me,” says the man in the prison tunic.

Sans teleports again, this time to the middle of a hiking trail on Mount Ebbot.  The grey silence is already there, waiting for them.

“You forget,” the man says, “You draw your abilities from the same place I do.”

Frisk grabs Sans’ hand as he prepares to run again.  They pull back, reminding him that finding his father was the plan, right?

“You did say  _ I’d _ be the one to find  _ you _ ,” the man points out.

Sans steps in front of Frisk, placing himself between them and the grey monster.  “Yeah, okay, I did, and I’m not even going to ask how you knew that.  But this has nothing to do with them.  Let me take them home, and we can talk.”

“I’m going to have to disagree with you.  According to my sources, your friend there has made a habit of bringing monsters out of the void.  I’d like the same courtesy and, if you don’t mind me saying so, I don’t trust you to follow through on your end of things, son.”

“Don’t call me that,” Sans hisses, then immediately bites his tongue.

The damage is done; the man grins widely.  “Oh, Sans.  And here I thought you were done trying to run away from me.”

Sans squares his shoulders.  “There will always be a part of me that’s trying to run away from you, but you know what?  That doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that I have to bring you back before I can bring someone much more deserving back.  So I am going to remember everything about you and drag you kicking and screaming back out of the void.”

“No need to get violent,” the man says.  “I’m as ready to get back into the timeline as you are to have you imposter father back.  Jail is infinitely preferable to this.”

Sans stares at him.  “That’s it?  Just like that, you’re willing to come back?”

“Of course.  I can’t do anything like this, but I can always escape from jail.”

“I can’t believe I forgot how arrogant you are,” Sans grumbles.  “Okay, fine.  I’ll meet you… somewhere.  But not now.”

“I’m sure you can understand why that isn’t going to work for me,” the man says impatiently.

Sans’ eyes narrow.  A moment later, he and Frisk are standing in Undyne and Alphys’ living room.  Papyrus and Gaster seem to have gone home, but Donahue is sitting on the couch scrolling through something on her phone.

“Hey Sans,” she says, raising an eyebrow when she notices Frisk.  “Thought you went home?”

“We’re about to have company, and I wanted your help with them,” Sans says as grey starts to creep in around the corners of the room.

“Oh,” Donahue says, putting down her phone.  “You found your dad?”

“Yeah.  Wasn’t hard.”  Sans’ right eye goes dark as he charges up his magic.

Donahue summons a spear.  “Okay.  He mad?”

Sans takes a deep breath and sits down on the floor.  “I can never tell.”  

“I’m not angry,” says a voice from nowhere.  The man materializes in the middle of the room.  “Just disappointed.”

“I said we could talk, I didn’t say you could control the conversation,” Sans says.

“Hmm.”  The man studies Sans’ face.  “You never did get that eye fixed.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”  Sans points at the spot in front of him.  “Now sit down and shut up so we can get this over with.  I’ve got some unpleasant remembering to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one short epilogue after this, guys! We're almost there!


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who stuck with me through this 6.5 month project! Your comments and reviews have been so inspiring, they really got me through everything. See you in the next story!

Frisk acts as a witness to a very abridged story of Sans’ childhood.  Afterwards, Sans returns to Undyne and Alphys’ apartment with the man in the prison tunic in tow.  He shoves him over the threshold, gives a rough summary of why he looks so solid, and storms back out.  Undyne is kind enough to let Donnie make the arrest.  The man sits handcuffed to a radiator until the grey monsters can be sorted out.

As Donnie rattles off the man’s rights (“You can sit down, shut up, and wait for this to be over.  Then you’ll go to jail for an extremely long time.”), Undyne tells Sans and Frisk about the Gingerbread Guard.  After some digging, she and Alphys had found Officer Lyrata’s cousin living in New Hotland.  He’d given them the details of her life, and helped them find her hovering outside a police station.  She’s been firmly cemented in the correct timeline.

Frisk gently leads Sans away from the radiator, out of the apartment, and to Toriel’s house.  They drink tea and eat pie, and kind Toriel doesn’t ask what happened.

After the pie and tea, Frisk calls Papyrus.  He and Sans sit in the living room all night, speaking in quiet voices long after the rest of house has gone to bed.  Both of them look weary in the morning.

Gaster rings the doorbell shortly after breakfast.  He looks much better than the oozing, gooey mess Frisk found in the old Core.  He says the other monsters seem solid enough it’s time to bring them back, if everyone has some time this afternoon to listen to an old story.  Frisk has already selected the “Grey Monster Revival” group in their phone.

They meet at Undyne and Alphys’ apartment again, since that seems to be where most of this is taking place.  Donnie makes coffee, and Gaster lays out the last of the details about his place in the timeline.  Adopting his sons, meeting the various grey monsters, falling into the Core.  Even the man in the prison tunic doesn’t interrupt.

When Gaster finishes his tale, the void-black of his skin has dulled to a sooty grey with a few darker patches.  It turns out this is skin, just an extremely dirty lab coat that was burned in the explosion.  He shrugs it off, revealing a beige sweater underneath.  Papyrus immediately sweeps him into a hug.  Undyne ends up joining the hug, which pulls in Alphys and Donahue, and at that point it seems ridiculous for Sans and Frisk to be the only two not getting in on the embrace.

Gaster feels solid under Frisk’s arms.  They consider this a tremendous achievement.

-

“So,” Sans says a few days later, “I can’t jump anymore.”

Frisk gives him space to continue.

“Turns out Dings was the last link to the void.  Once he resolved, I got cut off with the rest of the grey monsters.”  Sans sighs heavily.  “Looks like I’m doomed to move through the material plane under my own power from now own.”

Frisk thinks Sans isn’t actually upset about this development.  They ask if this is why the two of them are walking right now.

“Nah.  Papyrus says walking is supposed to be good for you, and honestly, it’s been years since I got out just to get out.”

“ _ It’s true _ ,” says an ivory and orange blur as it speeds by.

Sans clicks a button on the stopwatch he’s holding.  “Best time yet, bro.”

“I’m going to beat it _ , _ ” says a blue smear of color as it charges after Papyrus.

“I’m going to beat  _ you!” _ says a second blue streak as it passes the first one.

Sans clicks another button.  “If you guys wanted to win, you shouldn’t have given him a head start,” he calls after Donahue and Undyne’s retreating backs.

Frisk continues their leisurely stroll around the track.  They come up to the bleachers, where Gaster, Gerald, and Alphys are all writing simultaneously on a notepad.  The Monster Kids are trying to kick each other off the highest row, and Officer Lyrata catches them each time one falls over the edge.

Frisk takes a seat in the first row next to Toriel, who is working on a knitted sweater between her needles.

“Hello, my child,” she says, peering at the stitches through her reading glasses.  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Frisk looks at the clear blue sky, and the civilization monsterkind has built above ground, and the monsters they managed to drag back from the void.  It is, they agree, a fantastic day.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
